I WOULD like to congratulate our MP Hugh Bayley, for voting for a fully elected House of Lords in the historic House of Commons vote recently.

I am also thankful that he opposed the Government's proposal that Anglican bishops should retain their seats. It is, after all, wrong for faith groups to have unelected representatives in Parliament and doubly wrong for only one denomination among many in a multi-faith Britain to have this privilege.

We now face a long struggle to get the House of Lords to agree to elections, something that as a democrat I will work hard for.

If successful, this will be a major constitutional advance.

Well done, Hugh!

Coun Paul Blanchard (Labour), Chaucer Lane, York.

  • ARCHBISHOP John Sentamu has gained widespread support for his trenchant views on how we have lost our way in modern Britain.

It is therefore surprising that he has spoken out against an all-elected House of Lords.

After all, it is the clubby status of the Upper House in Westminster that obliges Lords (including representatives of the established Church) to nod through the half-baked legislation that is adding to the creeping power of the state while quietly fracturing communities.

David Farnsworth, Haxby, York.